Police costs of Badger Cull - The Highest ever!

The Governments Badger cull policy has been a cause of concern and controversy to us and the majority of the British public for many years. Science has never supported culling badgers as a solution to BovineTB in cattle. The Government has been very reticent in releasing any data about the badger culls - particularly related to costs - You have to ask why?

Figures released by Stop the Cull reveal that the 2017 badger culls are the most expensive ever - with Police costs alone at a record high of £3.861 million pounds

The UK taxpayer has funded the badger culls over the last five years at a cost of around £27 million pounds - a staggering amount of money - but, the Government haven’t mentioned that policing cost have added a further £13 million pounds - money that could have employed over 1500 new Nurses in the NHS, or 1650 new Police Officers or vaccinated around 60,000 badgers - almost double the number that has been culled to date.

The Police have a duty to keep the public safe, and they do an incredible job, but the Government is being incredibly naive if they think the Police can maintain normal responses and costs when the Government has licensed armed marksmen to free shoot badgers in the countryside - after dark - without any notice of when the culling starts - or where it could be taking place! The Police have a duty to respond to the legitimate concerns of the public.

Save Me Trust has never believed that culling Badgers would have any benefit to farmers or cattle. Bovine TB lies latent and undetected by the current tests within the herd. We have supported a project at an intensive dairy farm in the South West that had been under restrictions for many years. With the expertise of Veterinarian Dick Sibley and the use of the latest testing, the farm has reached OFT (Officially TB free) status without killing any badgers or other wildlife.

Dr Brian May said: “We are spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on something which is never going to work. So let’s change and do something new. History will show that this whole sorry business – the tragedy of Bovine TB – was entirely due to infectious cows being undetected by the pitifully inadequate TB test and re-infecting the herd, causing multiple breakdowns”.

Anne Brummer CEO of Save Me Trust said: “Its time to face the truth - Badger culling has not worked on any level - We have seen over 30,000 badgers killed, many of them taking more than 5 minutes to die - we’ve seen perturbation as farms on the edge of cull zones break down - and now the costs of Policing this pointless badger cull have spiralled out of all control”.

Ends

Save Me Trust was founded by Dr Brian May and Anne Brummer to give a voice to animals. Since 2009, we have campaigned to protect and strengthen the Hunting Act - to bring an end to the unscientific and inhumane badger culls - to end fur imports into the UK and ban fur farms around the world - and on many other animal welfare issues such as Elephant poaching, Puppy Farming, Wildlife Crime, Captive cetaceans and Grouse shooting. We oppose all blood sports and any form of cruelty for human ‘entertainment’ to animals.

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